opinion
Comedians Are Capable of
Antisemitic Incitement. So Let’s
Take Dave Chappelle Seriously
By Manishtana
L 14
NOVEMBER 24, 2022 | JEWISHEXPONENT.COM
Posters advertising a Netfl ix special by Dave Chappelle
line a wall in Midtown Manhattan, April 2017.

Trump’s popularity and appeal to his skill at being
an “honest liar.” Never before, said Chappelle, had
voters seen a billionaire “come from inside the
house and tell the commoners, ‘Inside that house
we’re doing everything you think we’re doing.’
And then he went right back inside the house and
started playing the game again.”
Chappelle took notes on Trump’s knack for saying
exactly what he means and telling people exactly
what he planned to do.

When Chappelle says there are two words you
should never say together — “the” and “Jews” —
he’s not speaking against antisemitic conspiracy
theories that treat Jews as a scheming monolith.

He’s insinuating instead that there is a “The Jews”
that should never be challenged. (Chappelle goes
on to repeatedly use the phrase “The Jews” in his
monologue.) The one time he uses “the Jewish com-
munity” is to introduce the straw man argument
that Black Americans should not be blamed for the
terrible things that have happened to “the Jewish
community” all over the world — a declaration
so baffl ing that only one person in the audience
responds. After all, no one was blaming West or
Irving, the NBA star who shared on Twitter a link to
a wildly antisemitic fi lm, for the terrible things that
happened to Jews. They were just being asked not
to promote the ideas of people who had done those
terrible things.

Also on full display is Chappelle’s deft, almost
“1984”-esque doublespeak. Chappelle notes that
when he fi rst saw the controversy building around
West’s antisemitism, he thought, “Let me see
what’s going to happen fi rst” — a strange and
telling equivocation. Chappelle diminishes the sig-
nifi cance of the fi lm shared by Irving, “Hebrews to
Negroes: Wake Up Black America,” by describing
it as “apparently having some antisemitic tropes
or something,” but then jokes that Irving probably
doesn’t think the Holocaust happened — a trope
presented in said movie.

Chappelle is reluctant to call Kanye “crazy” but
acknowledges he is “possibly not well,” but has
no problem referring to Georgia Senate candidate
Herschel Walker as “observably stupid.”
Ultimately and persistently, Chappelle suggests
Brecht Bug/Flickr Commons
ast week saw Dave Chappelle deliver a brilliant
monologue on “Saturday Night Live” addressing
the antisemitism controversies surrounding Kanye
West and Kyrie Irving.

Unfortunately, “brilliant” doesn’t inherently mean
“moral” or “good.” Chappelle’s monologue was a
masterclass in how to normalize and embolden
antisemitic discourse, delivered in plain sight and
with just enough “wink wink, nudge nudge” plau-
sible deniability — mixed in with a sprinkle of real
commentary — that one would easily almost not
realize that … wait, did Chappelle denounce any-
thing exactly?
He opened the monologue by pretending to read
from the kind of apology being demanded of Kanye
West, the rapper who in recent weeks had exposed
various antisemitic tropes. “I denounce antisemi-
tism in all its forms, and I stand with my friends in
the Jewish community,” Chappelle “read,” mocking
the boilerplate apologies that often arise in these
moments. At face value, it’s a great piece of satire.

But then he follows up with the punchline: “And
that, Kanye, is how you buy yourself some time.”
He isn’t holding West to account. He’s clearing
the way and setting the stage for the fi nest bout
of antisemitic dogwhistling probably ever featured
on “SNL.”
There is legitimate commentary to be made
about the often disproportionate and racialized
vitriol directed at Black Americans who engage in
antisemitism, coming from a society that revels in
Black pain and punishment. Jews of color, and espe-
cially Black Jews like me, have been addressing this
reality across social media for decades, noting the
lack of intensity and accountability when the shoe
is on the other foot — when Jewish fi gures espouse
anti-blackness. But this monologue by a Black comedian is mak-
ing no such argument. And it comes as more bold
and brazen bad-faith actors are acting out in more
and more violent ways. Comedians are just as capa-
ble of incitement as political fi gures.

Chappelle is wildly adept at structuring complex
jokes. For years he deftly delivered biting, raw and
real socio-racial commentary, from his standup
routines to “The Chappelle Show,” and since the
2000s has positioned himself as an astute teller
of hard truths. If you doubt the man’s intelligence,
watch what he does late in the “SNL” routine when
he talks about Donald Trump.

With backhanded praise, Chappelle attributes



opinion
that Kanye erred not in being antisemitic, but in
being antisemitic out loud.

Most insidious in this regard was his seeming
rejection of the notion, promoted by West, that
Jews control Hollywood. Said Chappelle: “It’s a lot
of Jews [in Hollywood]. Like a lot. But that doesn’t
mean anything, you know what I mean? There’s
a lot of Black people in Ferguson, Missouri. It
doesn’t mean we run the place.” He refers to the
idea that Jews control Hollywood as a “delusion.”
And then, rather than let this necessary distinc-
tion set in, he undercuts it, saying, “It’s not a crazy
thing to think. But it’s a crazy thing to say out loud
in a climate like this.” The problem, Chappelle
is suggesting, is not harboring dangerous delu-
sions, but saying them in public and risking being
called on it. The “climate” is not one of danger-
ous antisemitism, but the danger of speaking
one’s mind.

Chappelle telegraphed this sentiment with an
earlier quip: West, he said “had broken the show
business rules. You know, the rules of perception.

If they’re Black, then it’s a gang. If they’re Italian,
it’s a mob, but if they’re Jewish, it’s a coincidence
and you should never speak about it.”
The “perception” is that only Jews can’t be spo-
ken of in derogatory terms. Kanye wasn’t wrong
for thinking antisemitic thoughts, Chappelle sug-
gests, but, again, speaking about them.

There are lots of jokes made in Hollywood at the
expense of Jews. This, however, was not a case of
Jews being unable to laugh at ourselves. There’s
a difference between laughing at ourselves and
having someone who isn’t Jewish use “wink wink”
antisemitic tropes. It’s not that Chappelle’s mono-
logue wasn’t funny on its face, it’s that it was
harmful. This isn’t happening in a vacuum: It’s
happening in a specific context, particularly one
in which antisemitism has already been riled up
and emboldened by Kanye and Irving. (“Hebrews
to Negroes” became a bestseller on Amazon after
Irving tweeted about it.)
It just takes the wrong kind of person to hear this
monologue for us to experience, God forbid, another
Tree of Life shooting. I didn’t particularly relish the
wake of the first shooting when, as the rabbi of a
congregation in Rockland County, New York, I met
with county officials and negotiated police pres-
ences, and discussed mass-shooter evasion tactics
to ensure the safety of my congregants.

For anyone who thinks Chappelle’s monologue
was “just jokes” or that I am reading too much into
it, consider his last line — a bravura complaint
about cancel culture and the unspoken forces
behind it: “I’ll be honest with you. I’m getting sick
of talking to a crowd like this. I love you to death
and I thank you for your support. And I hope they
don’t take anything away from me. [ominous
voice] Whoever ‘they’ are.” JE
Manishtana is the pen name of Shais Rishon, an
African-American Orthodox rabbi, activist, speaker
and writer. He has written for Tablet, Kveller, The
Forward, Jewcy and Hevria.

Dave Chappelle Was
More Than Just Funny.

He Was Right
By Rebecca Sugar
I missed comedian Dave
Chappelle’s opening
monologue on “Saturday
Night Live” last weekend, but
I knew I had to watch it when
the wave of social media
outrage reached me.

When I finally saw it, what I heard shocked me.

Chappelle’s jokes about the Kanye West and Kyrie
Irving controversies were not only funny, they were
insightful and true, which is why they were funny
and why so many were angered by them.

The Anti-Defamation League’s CEO, Jonathan
Greenblatt, issued a statement suggesting that
Chapelle’s jokes “normalize” antisemitism. But what
Chappelle was really mocking wasn’t Jew-hatred. It
was the way Greenblatt and Jewish celebrities on
Twitter have “normalized” the maddeningly formu-
laic and unserious way we respond to it.

cue-card cure for antisemitism and we expect oth-
ers not to chuckle and roll their eyes? Chappelle is
exactly right to point out that all those statements
do is buy time until the check clears or the media
cycle moves on. These stunts breed cynicism and
skepticism, not harmony, and everyone knows it.

Chappelle’s funniest joke came when he cautioned
his listeners to never use two words in sequence:
“The Jews.” He probably didn’t know how good that
one was. Even as he was pointing out that Kanye
and Kyrie were slammed for stereotyping “the Jews,”
“the Jews” who self-appoint themselves the official
spokespeople of American Jewry were meeting with
corporations and the media to draw up their list of
demands for acceptable public redemption.

That list might be the biggest joke of all. The
fact that “sensitivity training” was on it tells us all
we need to know about who the list was designed
to serve. The requisite financial penalty was there
as well. How exactly a $500,000 donation to “fight
hate” might protect all the Brooklyn Jews (who
Chappelle hilariously says dress like Run-DMC)
The practice of offering absolution to selectively-
designated antisemitic offenders in exchange for
large checks made out to organizations that
“fight hate” is worth laughing at.

The practice of offering absolution to selective-
ly-designated antisemitic offenders in exchange for
large checks made out to organizations that “fight
hate” is worth laughing at. The idea that Jewish actors
and actresses who enthusiastically supported BLM are
now touted as credible voices on the issue of antisem-
itism in the Black community is something of a joke.

The proud reposting of these people’s statements by
Jews who can’t see that they are perpetuating our
community’s failed emergency response system is
funny only in the most tragic sense of the word.

Chappelle opened his set by reading a mock
apology statement. I was mouthing the words
along with him as he read it, precisely because I
had heard them, in all their insincerity, dozens of
times before. It is the template used by the accused
when dragged in front of the cameras to beg for
their livelihoods back.

Can someone whom we deemed Jew-hating
enough to be worthy of total cancellation 24
hours earlier suddenly be taken seriously simply
by robotically repeating, “I stand with my friends
in the Jewish community”? We pitch an overnight,
who have been getting sucker-punched on the
streets (by people who ironically also look like
Run-DMC but without the black hats) is a ques-
tion that remains unanswered. And what is “hate”
exactly? And how did the list-makers calculate that
$500,000 was needed to fight it?
What Kanye West said was antisemitic and so
was the film Kyrie Irving linked to on social media.

Saying so and taking action are important. But the
“line” Dave Chappelle referenced in his monologue
is also important. That line is about who is speak-
ing and acting in our name, and how. It is about
whether we are fighting antisemitism or leveraging
it. The former helps the Jews, and the latter helps
those who claim to be helping the Jews.

If we don’t start paying closer attention to that
line, the country will never take real antisemitism
seriously; because, clearly, neither do “the Jews.”
I am laughing along with Dave Chappelle at “the
Jews” who still miss the joke. JE
Rebecca Sugar is a freelance writer and philanthropic
consultant in New York.

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